Tag Archives: WP8

After weeks of seeing leaked images and specifications of the device, we now have confirmation that HTC is releasing their flagship Android device, the HTC One M8 in a Windows Phone variant. The HTC One (M8) for Windows was announced on August 19 as a Verizon wireless exclusive.

Even though Samsung’s Ativ SE was similar to their Android devices, the HTC One for Windows is the first true “clone” of an Android device running Windows Phone. Recently, Microsoft made it possible for OEMs to build Windows Phone hardware on their Android device chassis by relaxing the guidelines and minimum specifications in their reference design. One of the key changes made were relaxing the requirement to have three physical buttons on the front (Back, Start, Search) and to have a physical button for the camera. With those restrictions lifted, and adding support for accessories like cases to interact with the phone, as well as widespread support for Bluetooth LE and the like, the road was cleared for OEMs to re-purpose their devices for Windows Phone with minimal changes. An additional key barrier removed was the license fee for Windows Phone which went to zero dollars.

The impact of these relaxed guidelines was the signing of a dozen-odd new OEMs, primarily in the Asia-Pacific and India regions. These current low-cost Android device makers would now be able to put Windows Phone on those low-cost Android devices. These device makers are of course playing in the high volume markets where a large population of feature phone users are moving to their first smartphone. It is therefore crucial for Microsoft to have a significant presence in the region or risk being completely cut out of the next big platform play.

Back to the HTC One for Windows, it comes with all the goodness we have seen in the Android variant like HTC BlinkFeed, HTC BoomSound, Duo Camera with UltraPixel technology, a 5MP wide-angle front-facing camera and support for the HTC Dot View case. Additionally, the Windows Phone 8.1.1 OS adds Cortana, the personal digital assistant and a host of other features as I detailed in an earlier post.

HTC’s previous stab at Windows Phone, the HTC 8X/8S, was a well-designed phone which got no love at all after being released. Let’s hope, for the sake of Windows Phone, that this iteration gets some marketing push as well as support in terms of future updates.

On Friday May 2, Joe Belfiore, VP in the Windows Phone team participated in a reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA). There were several good questions and more importantly, several good answers there. One of the revelations from the AMA was an upcoming File Manager app for Windows Phone 8.1.

The app’s existence, and the fact that it should hopefully land in the Store around the end of May, was revealed by Belfiore in response to a question about file management on the phone. In fact, in his response, he mentioned that it is a highly requested feature and that he was glad to announce that the app is coming.

WOO HOO! SOMEONE ASKED THIS QUESTION!! I’ve been waiting! in fact, I’ve avoided tweeting on this very topic just for all you redditors. Seriously.

in fact– you GET A CORTANA T-SHIRT FOR ASKING!! :) (PM me your size and we’ll get it to you.)

*** YES *** We are doing a File Manager for WP8.1! I know a LOT of you are looking for this (thanks for the tweets, I’ve read them all). In fact, I’ve been running a build of it on two of my phones for the last week or so and it’s getting to pretty good shape.

The app by itself is nothing special. All the functionality that you expect from a file management application seems to exist. The design is quite consistent with the Windows Phone design language, with the large tiles for folders and the large names of files making them easy touch targets.

However, my first reaction was of disbelief, that there were in fact many requests for such an app:

Folks getting excited over a FILE MANAGER app for a PHONE? Ugh. That’s so low on *my* priority list. How about actionable notifications?

Right, so normal users shouldn’t and wouldn’t care about managing files on the phone. However, Windows Phone supports external storage and with Windows Phone 8.1, even apps can be installed on the external storage. With microSD card storage capacities going up and the push to lower cost of phones making on-board storage minimal, it may very well be that most Windows Phone users will need a way to move files back and forth between the device storage and external storage.

Hence, this app deserves the attention it has apparently got. However, it is a good sign that Microsoft is pushing all such functionality to apps and making several things possible as a result: make it optional for customers to use this app or not; make it easy for Microsoft to update the app based on features and functionality requested by the customers; keep the OS size smaller so that phones will low on-board storage don’t end up using much of it for the OS itself, and not have to wait until the next version of OS to deliver this functionality.

I like the fact that Belfiore chose to reveal this app on reddit. I suspect most of the requests for such an app would have come from the “power users”, and those are the type of users who would be on reddit to hear what he may have to say.

My phone (Lumia 920) does not have external storage so this app is not for me yet. I may get one of the upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 devices and if they have expandability, I will most surely get an external card and will need this app. Looking forward to it regardless.

On April 14, Microsoft made their latest update to Windows Phone, Windows Phone 8.1, available as a preview. I have been using it on my Lumia 920 since then, and definitely one of the top features I love in this update is the Action Center.

I recently gave up Windows Phone for an iPhone 5s, and one of the reasons was lack of a notification collection system, so it goes without saying that I am really happy to see it come to Windows Phone finally. Hopefully, being last to implement this feature means that the team at Microsoft is able to get the best of all the worlds. At its core, the Action Center is much like the notification mechanism found on Android and iOS. It resembles the Android implementation more because on iOS, the notifications are split from the “quick controls”. I like all of the things Action Center does (and can do, based on developer implementation in apps) and one big request to make it even more awesome.

Just Settings or entire Action Center: The way to invoke the Action Center is by dragging your finger from the top and swiping it down, much like Android and iOS. However, what’s cool with Action Center is that if you drag the finger slowly and stop about a third of the way down, you get access to just the quick settings area and not expose the entire notification area. This is cool, because if you just want to turn WiFi or Bluetooth on/off, you don’t need to necessarily open the entire Action Center. This is a good example of learning from the competition and doing better.

Settings are customizable: The quick settings area shows 4 (or 5 if you have a larger screen with 1080p, like a Lumia 1520) icons to represent settings which you may want to quickly access. You can change any of the icons to some other settings easily. So if you do a lot of tethering and are always on WiFi, you may not want the WiFi icon and may be better off with the tethering icon so you can turn it on or off quickly. Of course, there is also a link to open all settings, which nicely eliminates the need to have the settings app pinned to the Start Screen like I always have had to do.

Notifications can be dismissed individually or as a group: Another feature I like within the notifications area is that I can dismiss an individual notification without dismissing the entire group. So if I have received a few new email notifications, and I want to keep some in the notifications area as a pseudo-reminder but unclutter the area in general, I can dismiss some of the email notifications that I don’t particularly care to keep. This is not how iOS behaves, and I do think it is a good benefit to have. Of course, one can dismiss the entire group too.

Dismissing notifications resets the tile counter: I really, really like to keep my tile counter (or badges, in iOS) down to zero. So in iOS it annoys me that clearing a notification does not also clear the badge on the app’s icon. It is good to see that in Windows Phone 8.1, at least for the first-party apps like Mail, Messages, etc., clearing notifications also clears the tile counter. I know that third party apps like Facebook and Twitter don’t clear the counter, but I am hoping it is a feature that those apps need to implement and not private APIs that Microsoft is using in their apps. Assuming it is a feature all developers can use, I do hope that all devs take advantage of it and help obsessive-compulsive folks like me rest easy :-)

Developer choices: Another neat improvement over the competition in Windows Phone 8.1 is that developers have the choice of silently updating the notification center, without updating tiles or showing any banners or playing sounds. This is good because in some scenarios, just adding a notification to the notification area is enough and a user’s attention need not be taken away from whatever they are doing. Giving this choice to the developer and perhaps in turn, the developer offering these type of configurations to the user, means potentially more satisfaction with the device on the customer’s part.

Having said all that, there is of course one really important feature that is missing from Action Center, which does exist on Android. It is actionable notifications. This is where if there is a notification about a tweet reply, you could potentially reply to the tweet from the notification center itself, without having to open the app. If this choice is given to the developers, it would make the Action Center even more awesome.

Regardless though, this addition is immensely useful, and I am now seriously tempted to start using my Lumia 920 more than I use my iPhone 5s.

Today, at an event in New Delhi, Nokia unveiled its new range of Lumia smartphones running on Windows Phone 8. Sitting at the top of their WP8 Lumia range is the Lumia 920. The handset that was unveiled nearly 3 months ago is finally hitting the Indian shores.

The Lumia 920 sports a 4.5-inch ClearBlack Display with 768p+ resolution Puremotion HD+ display. Internally, the handset is powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon Krait processor, Adreno 225 GPU, 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage. The highlight of the Lumia 920 is, however, its 8.7MP PureView camera at the back. It is the first smartphone to feature Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and a floating lens technology, which helps in reducing the visible shake while taking videos. It also immensely helps in low-light photography by allowing a long shutter time, thus allowing more light to be captured.

Other features of Lumia 920 include wireless charging, NFC, GPS with A-GPS, Nokia Drive with free turn-by-turn navigation, and the usual bunch of sensors and connectivity options.

The Lumia 920 is accompanied by its smaller brother – the Lumia 820. The 820 sports a 4.3-inch WVGA AMOLED display with ClearBlack Display technology, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot and the same 1.5GHz dual-core Krait and Adreno 225 GPU as found inside the 920. The 820 does not sport a PureView branded camera, but instead comes with an 8MP Carl Zeiss lens aided by dual-LED flash.

The Lumia 920 will be available in a bunch of bold colors including yellow and white for Rs 38,199 beginning from January 11th. The Lumia 820, that also comes with interchangeable back covers, will officially set its buyers back by Rs. 27,599.

Sadly, Nokia did not announce the pricing of the Lumia 620, but it did say that the handset will be priced between the Lumia 510 and Lumia 710, which makes it a fairly tempting device. The handset is expected to be launched in India in the 1st week of February.

The Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 are important handsets for Microsoft and Nokia. With the Finnish giant suffering huge losses every quarter, the company has offered the best of everything it can with the Lumia 920 which includes an 8.7MP PureView Camera with optical image stabilization and Windows Phone 8.

While Nokia announced the Lumia 920 and 820 back in September, it has been mum on the final pricing and availability of the handset, especially in the United States. The Lumia 920 is already available for sale in certain regions of the world, including Russia where Nokia’s CEO, Elop, himself is at the store greeting customers.

Today, Nokia and AT&T announced the availability and pricing of the Lumia 920 and 820 in the United States on the carrier’s LTE network. The Lumia 920 will set users back by $99 on a two-year contract, while the Lumia 820 will cost them only $49.99. The pre-orders for both the handsets start on November 7th, with the phone hitting the retail stores on November 9th. For a limited time, AT&T will also be offering a wireless charging backplate with the Lumia 920.

The Lumia 920 is going to remain an AT&T exclusive for sometime, but the Lumia 820 will be available on Verizon’s network albeit with some slight radio changes and a different name – Lumia 822.

HTC has just announced its flagship Windows Phone handset, the Windows Phone 8X. The ‘X’ in the name makes it clear that this handset is the Taiwanese maker’s hero WP8 handset. Externally, the WP8X is made up of poly-carbonate plastic and will be available in bright colors like Nokia’s Lumia series. Frankly, the 8X looks too similar to Nokia’s Lumia handsets, and Nokia might just sue HTC for this.

“Pairing HTC’s beautiful new Windows Phone 8X and 8S with our brand is a big milestone for both companies,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “Together we are offering customers a clear choice and a truly unique experience. I’m thrilled to take our longstanding partnership to the next level.”

Internally, the WP8X packs in the same internals as any other high-end WP8 handset. This includes a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Krait processor clocked at 1.5GHz, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, quad-band GSM support, LTE support, a 4.3-inch 720p (1280×720) S-LCD2 display, NFC and an inbuilt 1800mAh battery. The 8MP snapper at the back of the handset sports the same ImageSense technology as found on the One X, along with an f/2.0 lens, aided by a single LED flash. The front 2.1MP camera has an ultra-wide 88 degree lens. The 8X will also be the first Windows Phone from HTC to sport the Beats Audio logo. HTC also states that the handset has “an enhanced amp” for improved audio quality. Quite a far cry from the poor audio quality of their Android handsets.

Like the One series, HTC has taken great efforts to make the 8X. Each of the 245 speaker grilles at the back of the phone is individually drilled showing how dedicated the company is.

Like Nokia, HTC did not announce a specific shipping date except a vague November on over 150 carriers worldwide at an unknown price.

Nokia is known to do stupid things from time to time – like releasing their flagship model on a day when most stores are closed. However, this time they might have even outdone themselves.

Yesterday, Nokia unveiled its new flagship – the Lumia 920. To be honest, the 920 seems to be a great device. It has reassuring build quality, elegant styling, capable hardware, and stunning imaging capabilities. The Lumia 920 features an 8-megapixel camera with moving parts that promises to offer outstanding low light photography, and digital-camera like optical image stabilization. Nokia even created a video to show off the 920’s photography chops.

The trouble is that most of the things you see in the video embedded above is fake. If you look closely, in one of the trailer windows you can spot a reflection of the camera crew. The video was definitely not shot by a guy riding on a bicycle. In fact, it wasn’t even shot with a Lumia. As you can see in the image embedded below, the camera man is clearly using a professional camera and not a smartphone.

Once exposed as a cheater, Nokia was quick to own up to its mistake. It apologized “for the confusion”, and admitted that the video was “not shot with a Lumia 920”.

Unfortunately for Nokia, that wasn’t the end of story. An enterprising blogger, Youssef Sarhan, spotted several oddities with the one of the pictures that Nokia is touting as a Lumia 920 sample snap. Check the light sources in the image below. Notice the diffraction patterns? That’s the kind of diffraction pattern you would expect from a prosumer camera or a DSLR. A smartphone camera is likely to produce a simplistic diffraction pattern like we see in the second image embedded below. To make things further damning for Nokia, a Hacker News user shared a snap taken during Nokia’s photoshoots, which clearly shows a DSLR being used by Nokia.

What makes Nokia’s decision to fudge sample videos and images taken by the Lumia 920 so ridiculous is the fact that the 920 actually takes brilliant images. Everyone who managed to get their hands on the prototype came away impressed with Lumia’s low-light capturing abilities. Nokia could have shared “real” camera samples and comparisons with the iPhone 4S and Galaxy S3, and everyone would have still been impressed. However, they just couldn’t resist the temptation of faking the samples to make the Lumia seem out of the world.

The past couple of years have not been very pleasant for Nokia. The Finnish mobile phone giant has had a hard fall, and it can only blame itself. There is only one way Nokia can pull itself out of its downward spiral, and that is by coming up with droolworthy handsets. Fortunately, that is exactly what Nokia seems to be doing. The Lumia 920, which was unveiled a short while back, is a gorgeous device that is well complemented by great hardware and latest software.

Samsung was first off the block with Windows Phone 8 smartphones, but Nokia will probably end up deciding Microsoft’s fate in the smartphone segment. The Windows Phone 8 powered Lumia 920 packs in ample wow-factors to make consumers crave for Nokia’s beast.

The Lumia 920 features an eight-megapixel camera, which by itself is hardly noteworthy. However, Nokia claims that it will offer outstanding low-light performance thanks to its ability to capture five to ten times more light than other smartphones. It also features the stunning PureView tech that we saw in the 808. While the Lumia doesn’t have the gigantic lens of the 808, the combination of superior optics and PureView software could very well make it the best-in-its-class as far as the camera is concerned.

To go with the camera, Nokia is also bundling a number of Lens apps, which are nothing but little apps that are tightly integrated with the camera. The ones that Nokia showed off today include Bing Vision, Photosynth, Blink, FXSuite, PhotoStrip and CNN iReport. Bing Vision is Microsoft’s answer to Google Goggles. It offers image-based search for quickly looking up more information about the book that you are reading or the music CD that your friend owns. Photosynth is also a Microsoft app, and it allows you to create stunning 3D models of any location by stitching together a series of images. FxSuite is an image effects app that allows you to preview effects before actually capturing an image.

The most exciting feature, however, is City Lens. City Lens was announced earlier this year, and was so far only available through Nokia Beta Labs. However, with Windows 8, Nokia will be baking this feature into the system. City Lens is an augmented reality app that leverages Nokia’s excellent maps to overlay information about nearby buildings and establishments on your camera. Augmented Reality apps have been around for quite a few years; however, they are yet to really go mainstream. If Nokia can manage to nail City Lens, it could very well open the flood gates.

Using City Lens is pretty straightforward. Open the app, and tell it what you are looking for (e.g. Restaurants). It will instantly pull up nearby restaurants, and overlay them on the camera along with info about the restaurant and its distance. Tilt the phone 45 degrees, City Lens will switch to a list of those locations. Hold it in a parallel position, and it will bring up the map view. Check out the video below to see it in action.

Along with the Lumia 920, Nokia also announced a mid-range Lumia handset for the masses running Windows Phone 8 — the Lumia 820. The Lumia 820 comes with a 4.3-inch ClearBlack AMOLED display with WVGA (800×480) resolution. Like the display on the Lumia 920, the AMOLED display on the Lumia 820 also packs in sunlight readability enhancements with a high brightness mode.

Even though the Lumia 820 sports similar design to the Lumia 920, it does not come with unibody construction. This, however, allows the handset to feature exchangeable back covers that also allow adding missing features like wireless charging.

Internally, the Lumia 820 packs in the same internals as the 920, which includes a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, 1GB of RAM, and an Adreno 225 GPU. Other specs of the handset include 8GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, Wi-Fi b/g/n. GPS with A-GPS, a front-facing VGA camera, and an 8MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics aided by dual-LED flash but without the Pure View technology. The handset is also capable of recording videos at Full HD (1080p) resolution at 30FPS. The 1650mAh battery inside the Lumia 820 should hopefully be sufficient enough to make sure the handset lasts a full day on a single charge.

The Qualcomm baseband allows the Lumia 820 to support pentaband LTE. Sadly, the Lumia 820 will only be available sometime in Q4 of this year, at a yet to be announced price, in a bunch of colors including red, yellow, grey, cyan, purple, white and black.

Both the Lumia handsets will also come with some exclusive apps including Angry Birds Roost from Rovio.

As expected, Nokia has just announced its highly anticipated successor to the Lumia 900 here in New York running Windows Phone 8, the Lumia 920. The “most innovative smartphone in the world” features some of the best technology from Nokia including the company’s Pure View tech and Wireless charging.

The Lumia 920 sports a super bright 4.5-inch LCD display with HD+ WXGA (768×1280) resolution encased in Gorilla Glass 2. Don’t get excited about the extra 68 pixels though, as they are used up by three on-screen navigation buttons at the bottom. The display uses Nokia’s new Pure View HD+ technology to display text with stunning clarity and viewing angles. Internally, the Lumia 920 packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5GHz, an Adreno 225 GPU, 1GB of RAM and 32Gb of internal memory.

Even though the Lumia 920 sports PureView technology, it does not pack in the monster 41MP sensor as found on the PureView 808. Instead, it packs in a much smaller 8.7MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, optical image stabilization and a next-generation LED flash that is 2x times more powerful. However, the PureView technology is still very much there, and the Lumia 920 can take some stunning pictures even in extremely low-light situations. The handset can also take professional quality 1080p HD videos, thanks mainly due to the Pure View technology.

“We view imaging as a core area for differentiation in the smartphone space,” said Crawford Del Prete, Executive VP WW Products and Chief Research Officer, IDC. “Low light photography has been a weak point for smartphones. Nokia has addressed this with PureView to create real customer value. By applying its rich expertise in imaging Nokia has created a best of breed experience for everyday use.”

The Lumia 920 will come in a bunch of vibrant colors including yellow, red, grey, white and black. The handset will sport the same polycarbonate unibody construction as its predecessor. Thanks to the Qualcomm baseband, the Lumia 920 will simultaneously support 5 LTE bands along with support for HSPA+ networks. Other features of the handset include NFC, Wi-Fi b/g/n, GPS with A-GPS, and a 1.2MP front-facing camera capable of shooting videos in 720p resolution. The 10.7mm thick handset will also incorporate a 2000mAh battery for, hopefully, an all day long battery life. The Qi wireless charging technology is also incorporated on the Lumia 920, and makes an appearance after it was original featured in the Palm Pre phones.

However, the most important feature of the Lumia 920 is that it will be running on the next generation OS from Microsoft, Windows Phone 8. The new OS will feature tight integration with other Nokia services such as Nokia Maps, Transport, and Drive. The new OS will also incorporate an updated camera app that will be tightly integrated with other augmented reality apps from MS including City Lens.